RENSSELAER - A plan for new medians with trees, bike lanes, and extended sidewalks for Columbia Turnpike between the intersection with Broadway and the eastern city limits was met with concern from local business owners at a public input meeting Tuesday night.

The plan calls for "green infrastructure," said Charles Moore, director of planning and development for the city, including more green areas and enhanced bike lanes throughout the corridor, which is part of a state designated bike thoroughfare. The preliminary plan calls for widening the existing four foot lanes to the standard five foot lanes and, further east along the route, widening the road to allow for the creation of five foot bike lanes.

The city is also looking to construct a sidewalk between Aiken and Washington Avenues to connect existing sidewalks -- to be reduced to five feet with a maintenance strip -- and altering the present sidewalk slopes to meet Americans with Disabilities Act guidelines are to be constructed in concert with new medians.

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There are two alternative plans regarding medians, although both contain the aforementioned alterations and new medians along either roadside. One plan leaves the enlarged medians flush with the roadway. Another plan, however, calls for drastically altering the look of the corridor through constructing five raised medians along the center of the road, possibly to contain trees. The estimated cost of constructing the raised medians would being the total cost to $985,000, a more than a million increase over the flush median version.

The bike lane changes, in combination with the new medians, are aimed at narrowing the roadway to dampen motorist's speeds through the area, and at defining and consolidating driveway openings onto Route 20.

"There won't really be a big change for people driving through the area," said Lisa Westrick, a representative of CHA Consulting, Inc. who are conducting the planning. "They'll still have four travel lanes and a two-way left turn lane."

Local business owners along the primarily commercial stretch are concerned that the improvements, and especially the medians, may pose a hazard to tractor trailers.

"We do have a large fleet that use that road to get to the port of Rensselaer, more than a 100 vehicles," said Matthew Polsinello of Polsinello Fuels, Inc. located along Columbia Turnpike. "We looked at the percentage of traffic that is using [Route] 9 and [Route] 20 to get to the Port of Rensselaer and it is significant. That needs to be considered as we talk about narrowing roadways and sharing roadways."

Business owners also expressed concern that the improvements may be addressing some traffic concerns, when there are more pressing problems below ground.

"We're not tackling the infrastructure problems, we're just putting a fancy facade on top of it, " said Jack Dority, who employs more than 30 people PetroChem Mechanical Services, Inc. "There's all this infrastructure under where we're going to be putting these nice new visual and aesthetic enhancements. We need to do the subterranean work before we put on the finishing touches."

In recent years, Dority has seen persistent flooding at his 309 Columbia Street location, with rains often bringing the water level up to his building's front door. Westward along Route 20, Polsinello has seen similar drainage issues.

"It's not every rainstorm by any stretch of the imagination, but they tend to get worse, not better on their own," said Polsinello. "Some of concerns we have are that we are doing all of this without infrastructure being taken care of. In front of our property, the road has been torn up several times for water main and sewer issues. We don't want to put the cart before the horse."

They were not alone in emphasizing that infrastructure upgrades are of more pressing need, in particular the sewer, storm water and the bridges east of Rensselaer Avenue passing over the railroad tracks and Route 9J. However, the slightly more than a million dollars earmarked for the project derives from grants that cannot be used for projects other than bike lane and traffic flow improvements.

The project is being financed by a Green Innovation Grant from the state Environmental Facilities Corporation worth roughly $200,000. The rest is being 80 percent funded by the federal government through the Congestive Mitigation and Air Quality Program, with the other 20 percent footed locally.

The current improvements are part of a longterm vision for the Columbia Turnpike corridor, which was first envisioned when a study was completed in 2004. The study opposed some changes that have already been implemented, such as pedestrian signals at all the traffic lights.

Designs will be finalized this spring and construction is expected to begin next spring.

The city is accepting written comments to be taken into consideration in the project's continued planning. Comments can be addressed to Charles Moore, director of planning, 62 Washington St., Rensselaer, NY 12144.